


turning the tide

by schittyfic (sixtysevenlmpala)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Anxious David Rose, Comfort, Communication, Date Night, Fluff, Husbands, Jukebox Prompt, M/M, Patrick Brewer loves David Rose, Post-Canon, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27996357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixtysevenlmpala/pseuds/schittyfic
Summary: After the third date night in a row where their conversation devolves into quarterly projections and negotiations with their new bespoke potpourri vendor, David has to bring it up.“Are you bored?”Patrick pauses with his hand on the ignition. A deafening silence hangs in the air after the rumble of the engine dies, and Patrick’s face is full of muted confusion when he turns to look at him. “What?”Or: five years into their marriage, David grows concerned that they're becoming boring when all they talk about on dates is work. Some (mostly) mature communication, comfort, and fluff ensues as our boys re-centre themselves on what's most important.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 64
Kudos: 263





	turning the tide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samwhambam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samwhambam/gifts).



> Writing has been Not My Friend lately, so I thought I'd bash out a quick few hundred words on a jukebox prompt to get me out of the rut. 1.6k later, here we are!
> 
> For [samwhambam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samwhambam/pseuds/samwhambam)'s prompt: "David and Patrick both struggle with turning off work mode when they go on dates."
> 
> Huge thanks to [midnightstreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightstreet/pseuds/midnightstreet) and [Januarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Januarium/pseuds/Januarium) for hand-holding and for contributing the best phrases in here, and to [tinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_is_not_nothing/pseuds/this_is_not_nothing) for saving my ass with a title. I appreciate you guys. <3

After the third date night in a row where their conversation devolves into quarterly projections and negotiations with their new bespoke potpourri vendor, David has to bring it up.

“Are you bored?”

Patrick pauses with his hand on the ignition. A deafening silence hangs in the air after the rumble of the engine dies, and Patrick’s face is full of muted confusion when he turns to look at him. “What?”

David blows out a measured breath, trying to keep the panic clawing its way up his throat at bay. They’ve been married five years. This shouldn’t be so scary. He shouldn’t be convincing himself, week on week of mundane dinner dates, that Patrick is becoming disinterested in him, that he’s not seeing… whatever it was he saw in David before. It’s irrational. So, instead of giving into dramatic snark and assuming he holds the absolute truth in his anxiety-ridden brain, David tries his damnedest to frame his thoughts in a way his therapist would be proud of.

“Okay, just - the last few times we’ve gone out for dinner, we’ve ended up talking about work. A lot. And - and that makes me _feel_ \- it makes me worry that things maybe aren’t as good as they used to be.”

Fuck yeah. If only Martha could witness that. 

Patrick’s eyebrows stitch together in the middle of his forehead. He looks hurt, and David instantly feels sick, but Patrick unclips his seatbelt, leans over the centre console and pulls him into a fierce (if slightly awkward) hug. His face is pressed into David’s neck and his arms are firm and insistent, and David didn’t realise how much he needed it until he’s clinging. 

“David.” There’s so much packed into those two syllables, so much brimming in Patrick’s eyes as he cups David’s face with both hands. “Come on, let’s get inside. And we’ll talk about it, okay?”

In another life, those words would have filled David with a cold dread. Now, he welcomes them like the first sprinkle of rain in a drought; he opens his arms, tips his head back and lets them soak him to the skin with a comforting promise that things will be okay. _We’ll talk about it._

Patrick’s hand is warm and constant at his back as David lets them into their home. It falls away when David goes to pour them each a glass of wine from the kitchen, but David still feels him somehow. He knows exactly which spot on the couch he’s taken, and what look he’ll give David when he walks in. He’s right on both counts, and he returns the small, slightly-nervous smile as he hands Patrick his glass and situates himself cross-legged on the couch, sitting sideways so he’s facing his husband.

“So,” Patrick says, raising his eyebrows at David. “You’re freaking out.”

“Actually, I’m very deliberately _not_ freaking out, and I think I deserve some credit for that,” David counters.

There are crinkles at the corners of Patrick’s eyes as he twists his mouth into a small, amused smile. David loves each and every one of them, just like he loves the pause Patrick leaves for him, waiting patiently for David’s thoughts to spill out of his mouth so they can untangle them together.

“It’s just. When we started dating… we were _disgustingly_ into each other, right?”

“I mean, I’m not sure I’d use the term 'disgusting' to refer to our early relationship.”

“ _Okay,_ but. We used to talk for hours, about everything. It was like we couldn’t even think about anything else. And now we’re - we talk like we’re _co-workers_ , and one of us is usually checking emails at the table, and --” David can hear his voice climbing a notch higher with every other word. He struggles to yank it back down again - _soothing place, picture your soothing place_ \- but still ends up almost sloshing wine over his lap with a dramatic hand-wave as he carries on. “What if we’re running out of things to talk about already?! It’s only been _five years_ of marriage!”

“Almost six.” Patrick hides a smile in a sip of wine.

“That is still a long, _long_ way to go ‘til death do us part!” 

“You know we _are_ co-workers, right? It’s okay to talk about work. We literally own a business together.” 

“Okay, yes, but. We have a _regular date night,_ Patrick, like - like Roland and Jocelyn! Is that who we are now?”

David swears he can see Patrick’s shoulders shaking, but he’s doing a good job of schooling his face into something mockingly serious. “I’m sorry, David, what’s the alternative? Should we be crashing Jake’s parties? Following Mariah on tour? Do I need to invest in a motorcycle?”

“Oh, God.” David stares into the middle distance with horror as he envisages Patrick’s growing curls molded grotesquely into a helmet shape. “Good _God_ , no. Although, put a pin in that Mariah thought.”

“Alright, well, in that case, I gotta cancel some payments.”

The teasing is familiar and safe, like a hot tea in midwinter; like coming home. David tries valiantly to pace his breathing - _four in, six out_. When he speaks, it’s quiet and steady. “I know it’s ridiculous. I just don’t want us to be all… old and boring. I don’t want _you_ to be bored. Of this, or of me.”

Patrick scoffs, and rolls his eyes. David would be offended, if it didn’t immediately melt the icy fear in his bones at losing what’s between them. “David, just last week you demonstrated an unexpectedly extensive knowledge of the art of _contact juggling._ You have surprised me every single day since I met you. I don't see that changing.”

You’d think the fierce sincerity would get easier to digest as time wore on. David nods jerkily and fixes his eyes on his wine glass instead of Patrick’s soft, open gaze. Predictably, Patrick sets his wine glass on the coffee table and shifts forward to firmly tilt David’s chin up with two fingers.

“Hey, look at me. There’s just a lot to talk about right now, with expanding the business and everything. And that’s the opposite of boring to me, David, it’s _exciting_ \- I am so, so excited that I get to be on this adventure with you.”

David feels his eyes prickle. “Yeah. So am I.”

“Maybe I have been... a little too focused on work lately, though. That’s on me.” Patrick’s thumb traces over David’s stubble.

David frowns. “Okay, well, no, that is... not correct. I was the one who asked you about the numbers tonight, remember? I think we’re both equally guilty of that.”

Patrick nods easily. Somehow, the word _sorry_ isn’t uttered, and it doesn’t need to be. There’s something liberating in the stability they’ve built between them; the freedom to confess a fault and accept a shortcoming, and the safety of knowing it won’t cause them to implode.

“Well, I’m glad you brought it up. Thank you, David.” Patrick leans in slowly, as if he’s asking permission. David meets him halfway in a gentle kiss. “You’re right. Maybe we could… compartmentalise a little better. I want to make the most of every second I spend with you, and that doesn’t include talking window dressings at dinner.”

David presses his forehead against Patrick’s, feeling a tension seep out of his shoulders which he’s been ignoring for longer than he’ll admit; perhaps longer than he’d realised. His free hand seeks out Patrick’s and squeezes hard - he feels the same, wants the same, hopes to God Patrick knows it. Patrick intertwines their fingers together like the sweetest confirmation, and David whispers a, “Thank you,” into the space between their lips.

*

Next Thursday, for designated old-married-couple date night, they don’t go to the Café. They don’t go to their favourite Italian place in Elmdale, or the Wobbly Elm for drinks in their usual booth. 

No, this time, David finds himself cosied up in a thick shawl, leaning against his husband on a picnic blanket spread out beneath the stars of the early evening. The creek babbles quietly as they watch, the water rolling lazily on and on, without a care in the world. Fireflies swoop and sway in an unhurried dance overhead, glowing gold in the dusk. There’s a veritable feast surrounding them, but not a phone in sight. _Those are staying right here,_ Patrick had said as he placed both phones on the dresser. David had ribbed him about being apart from his emails for so long, but Patrick hadn’t taken the bait, instead looking at him steadily as he shrugged on a nice jacket. _Tonight’s just for us, David._

Like the meandering course of the creek, the conversation dips occasionally, inexorably, into work territory. David reflexively reaches for his absent phone to make a note of a branding concept he wants to run by Alexis; later, Patrick catches himself after he’s already reminded David about the delivery of scarves they’re expecting in the morning. Each time, there’s a pause and two shared, sheepish smiles; each time, they gently guide each other home, finding their bearings in a touch or a kiss or the chill of the night.

“Hey,” David mumbles, remembering something, his chin moving against Patrick’s shoulder as he speaks. The arm wound around his waist squeezes in acknowledgment. “So, last week - you said I _surprise_ you. And you said the _store_ is exciting. You never actually, _explicitly,_ said you weren’t bored of me.”

“Hmm?” David can hear the smirk, even in that one single hum. Bastard.

“Yep, if you could just say ‘I’m not bored of you’, that would be great, thanks.”

“You are very, very surprising.”

“Mkay, no. That’s not _not bored_.”

“I love you, David.”

“That’s very nice, honey, but that’s not--”

Patrick laughs, and kisses away the disgruntled noise from David’s lips. David closes his eyes, leans into it, and thinks of nothing else but this.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, please do leave a kudos/comment if you enjoyed. I love hearing from you guys.
> 
> <3


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